Dawn Surf at Taylor's Mistake and a dolphin encounter

This is how to start a Monday morning properly... A few minutes after waking up, I slid the side door open, blinked out at the blue sky, then climbed out of bed and straight into my wetsuit. No one was even on the beach, let alone in the surf. There was not a breath of wind, only a few clouds, but plenty of gentle waves rolling in. We had the whole bay to ourselves and the pick of the waves. We whooped!

Having christened Clare's new board, we walked back to the van for some breakfast in the warm morning sun, then packed up and headed north.

We had to call into the camper depot to sort out a problem with the fridge, then drove north out of Christchurch along the coastal highway. The winds had picked up tremendously and rocked the van sideways as gusts hit us. We were also reminded how lucky we'd been in the Getzy, travelling with air-con. The sun beat down and this time we had no cool air gently chilling us!

We drove to a little beach called Amberly, and pulled in to a lovely shady spot, about a hundred metres from the beach. There was no surf, but the views made up for it!

Being able to take refuge in the van is a real winner. Just to get out of the wind, for a while, to brew a pot of coffee and flick through a book seemed like a lifesaver as we were both hot and tired from the drive. Feeling much better from the rest, we returned to the beach to soak up the views and maybe take a stroll. Sitting on a bench at the waters edge, we both suddenly saw two dolphins swim past, just meters from the shoreline.

Unbelievable! We couldn't believe what we were seeing. We jumped up and walked alongside as they slowly made their way along, parallel with the beach. We walked and jogged along as they bobbed up then disappeared, only to reappear further along! Part walking, part jogging, we followed for about a kilometre, before deciding to strip off and jump in with them! (We were fairly satisfied by this point that they weren't sharks!).

An amazing experience and definatly one to store carefully in the memory banks! What were the chances? Two dolphins and no one for miles to see them except us two! We felt very lucky. The swim didn't last long as the water was much colder than the north island, but the experience of seeing a dolphin a few meters away while swimming was more than worth it! Back at the van, we celebrated our good fortune with a chilled glass of wine from our newly fixed fridge!